Dear Friends and Supporters of the Downtown Teens,
I have hesitated to send this email asking for funds for 2010, in light of the crisis in Haiti. I am sure you are all doing as much as you can to help the people of Haiti. However, we (Teka and I) are revving up the Downtown Teens for 2010 and plan to accomplish as much, if not more as previous years. To do so, we will need your help. As you can see from the report and addendum below, we had a great year in 2009—thanks mainly to a single, one-time gift of $10,000.
We are currently planning and budgeting for 2010. Please consider giving a one-time financial gift now or a monthly gift for 2010 so that we can make decisions for the coming year. Currently, Downtown Teens does not have 501c3 tax exempt status, however any checks received prior to January 31, 2010 can be credited to last year and you can receive a tax letter from PIDC. Due to my disgust with the “too big to fail” Bank bail-out, we closed our business account at Bank of America and have temporarily moved the Downtown Teens funds to a separate, but personal account at Saint Louis Community Credit Union, who do not have provision for business accounts. Thus, checks need to be made to either Teka or me. Soon, we will open a new business account for the Teens in a local, community bank or credit union that offers business accounts, once we have received our charter and tax exempt status. Then we will be able to issue tax letters for any donations after January 31, from the Downtown Teens.
Here is the summary from the past 4 years:
Stats are compiled for the 4 years of the program, beginning in 2006 to the end of 2009. Most values are rounded to the nearest $100.
|
|
FY 2006 42 Weeks |
FY 2007 42 Weeks |
FY 2008 42 Weeks |
FY 2009 42 Weeks |
|
PIDC jobs |
$ 10,800.00 |
$ 9,400.00 |
$ 15,600.00 |
$ 4,700.00 |
|
Other jobs |
$ 11,700.00 |
$ 16,500.00 |
$ 13,200.00 |
$ 29,000.00 |
|
Total $ |
$ 22,500.00 |
$ 25,900.00 |
$ 29,800.00 |
$ 33,700.00 |
| Payroll | 11,250.00 | 12,600.00 | 14,800.00 | 15,400.00 |
|
Avg # of weekly (P)articipants |
10 |
9 |
8 |
8 |
|
Avg pay/P |
$ 1125.00 |
$ 1400.00 |
$ 1850.00 |
$ 1925.00 |
|
Total Adult Mentor hours |
710 |
720 |
690 |
700 |
|
Tools and Equipment |
$1,400.00
|
$600.00
|
$800.00
|
$300.00
|
|
Customer Invoices |
$ 10,600.00 |
$ 11,100.00 |
$ 12,200.00 |
$ 16,200.00 |
|
% of total |
47% |
43% |
41% |
48% |
| Write-off Bad debt |
|
|
| 4700.00 |
|
Donors |
$ |
$ 3,100.00 |
$ 4,000.00 |
$ 10,000.00 |
|
Mike/Teka Subsidy/ Donation |
$ 13,300.00 |
$ 12,300.00 |
$ 14,400.00 |
$ 12,500.00 |
Addendum to the Downtown Teen report:
2009 was a different year for the Teens. The slow economy led to several of our former teen graduates to being unemployed and not in school full-time. Coupled with a health issue I encountered in late 2008, I decided to offer temporary jobs to 4 of our graduates at $10.71/hour- $12.75/hour, less taxes. These graduates of our program ranged in age from 19-27. They were a big help on the jobs by both modeling proper behavior and skills, as well as providing some additional strength where I was lacking due to my health, which by the way is back to pre-heart attack condition! They were able to give some direction to the younger teens on the job and during our shared meals at the end of each day.
Of those four graduates, three found jobs during the course of the year as of 11/30/09. In addition, the fourth, Walter, just informed me today that he will be starting work at Dierbergs.
Since these employees were not part of the “educational” component of the Downtown Teens, they did not qualify for tax-free stipends. Instead, we paid them a living wage This tremendously added to the expenses of this year but seemed worth it.
Four of them worked for twelve hours a week for 8 weeks, three of them worked for 19 weeks, two of them worked for 27 weeks and one of them worked for 32 weeks—in exchange for rent and utilities.
I primarily employed them initially on PIDC projects—which never got reimbursed by PIDC after Teka and I left the Board, for a loss of $10,000 and on Little House Projects, which we paid out-of-pocket.
The total payroll and/or other payments:
$3072 weeks 1-8
$3168 weeks 9-19
$1536 weeks 20-27
$480 weeks 28-32
$8256 weeks 1-32
I have no idea how other graduates will fare into the coming year of 2010 or whether we will be able to manage to employ any of our graduates in 2010 with the extra burden of expense and bookkeeping. We will wait and see.
Please send donations by Mail: 1538-A N. 17th Street, Saint Louis, MO 63106. Paypal: mbroute66@charter.net
Posted via email from michaelbaldwin
It’s around six months since I 
